I'v starting to wonder recently what really makes a good photographer, because to be honest, these days what you think is a good photo can lie to you almost as well as a 2 ft long nose owning Pinocchio. You wonder what I mean by this? First of all lets get down to the core of the matter which is a good portion of the population getting a sudden urge to pick up a camera and play paparazzi, either with humans or nature ( I'm not complaining here as there have been some excellent shots from people's learning evolution. ) There has however, a been an unnaturally large surge in people buying cameras, quoting focal numbers and calling themselves " artists". So what does make a good photo? In years gone by it was good composition, a comprehensive understanding of how your camera works and some knowledge of the workings of light and optics. That, however is no longer a pre-requesit of a decent looking photo, as it has been replaced by that dreaded yet fateful crutch .... PHOTOSHOP , or for the more sophisticated of you Adobe Lightroom. Goodness how the masterminds have grown ! Once something preserved for teenagers who had sugar addictions and wanted to cover up the ensuing evidence on their skin, or Britney Spears' chronic cellulite, has now seem to become the natural process every photo goes through before being published. Lighting changes, over exposure or underexposure corrected, glows, shines, darkness, light effects, colour enhancements, and yes, the acne fix for those of us who are now ruining our liver etc. The list is endless, you name it and enough hours sat in front of your computer with photoshop as your loving guide will fix it. Some incredible pictures have come out of this process; unfortunately this leaves us with a dilemma. When a stunning photograph is view the question must be asked " did you really take this photo?" or was it just you, your photo, and photoshop in a steamy, colourful five hour threesome that produced this masterpiece. I'll leave you with the closest thing I can find to an example of what I mean, kindly donated by my sister amber, quite the mastermind with photoshop, but thankfully for other's badly taken pictures and not her own
Disclaimer: I do myself own a copy of Photoshop CS3 but my level of using competence is still at the teenaged skin problem stage. I also do own or co-own a Nikon D60 and enjoy experimenting, but do not profess any knowledge of how to use it professionally, only rediscovering a week ago that aperture and shutter speed are somewhat proportional to one another
9 comments:
we live in a very high tech world, old photography isn't what it use to be...
good point sekio and im not at all suggesting people go back to non-digital cameras, that would be ludicrous, what i am suggesting is that some sort of line be drawn between someone who actually has real talent and skill for their hobby , and the computer geek
Part of being a good photographer is knowing how to use photoshop well. Any teenager can take the program and fiddle around with whatever setting sparks their fancy and they might even turn out with something better than the original (which in most cases was taken by themselves of their underage cleavage through the bathroom mirror)...not a difficult thing. The line is in being able to see art in a well taken photo and enhance it, in contrast to what every teenager does in their spare time (geeze, who hasn't scanned their face and thought it was awesome?). I must admit though that your sister's work is more pleasant than the usual purple face emo shot or the 4 frame multicolour crap people seem enchanted with. It's kind of funky though when people will judge a photographer by how much or how little he uses photoshop...the technology is there for a reason and as much charm there is in black and white shots from the 30's they do get dull after a while.
Oh and by the way, long time no hear how's things ? :)
good thanks joanna ! just to clarify joanna im not judging a photographer by how much they do or dont use photoshop as even every professional photographer will use a method like adobe light room or the actually dark room to get the results they want. what i am saying is wrong is when people rely solely on photoshop to fix all their problems
Lightroom is for n00bs, not "more sophisticated" people, Its main point is being user-friendly, Much like MAC computers. Photoshop is WIN.
Also, it takes a certain skill level to correct a photo on photoshop without it looking like a twilight poster.
So it's easy to spot the crappy photoshop jobs, which sadly, make it into advertising.
I think to be a decent Photographer or Photomanipulator take different skills, but skills nonetheless.
Yes, I get tired of seeing the same old badly edited crap, but be careful not to lump all us photoshop geeks into the same category.
Anyone who can turn a crappy photo into a work of art with photoshop gets my respect, its probably equally as hard as taking a decent photo in the first place.
I'm just a random girl who strolled onto your blog and found this post quite interesting.
To begin with, I'm a amateur photographer. I own a Nikon D70 and frequently use Photoshop.
I have some favorite photographers who I frequently follow via facebook/twitter/blogs, and they post a lot of information about how they go about in taking their photos.
Chase Jarvis
Zac Arias
Joe McNally
David Hobby
Scott Kelby
Joey L (who shot the twilight movie poster)
are just a few of the professionals who I follow. In their tutorials, there is not one time where they would mention, "we did not do any post production for our photo". Basically ALL of their work has gone through photoshop for their editing. These photographers DO rely on photoshop while shooting, just because they know they can't reach a certain look on site of their shoot than they can in photoshop.
Photoshop was created for photographers. It's not a computer program that anyone can use to fiddle around with--of course you CAN do that. But it's main reason it was created was so they can enhance certain features in a photo, take away flaws, etc. basically, a photographers dream come true/stress reliever.
When you become a professional at photoshop and with a camera, you'll easily notice what is good shooting and what is good photo editing.
Basically, what I've learned what makes a good photo, is the craft and creativeness the photographer is trying to show to its viewers. All the other stuff is to make it even better. So if you don't have a good photo to start with (bad lighting, bad camera settings and no creativeness), and you do the best photoshop job to it, that's not going to make a good photo because it's got no creativeness behind it.
ack I can go on and on about nonsense. I'll stop now. :)
it is true joan that most professional photos go through photoshop or lightroom before being released and this is the equivalent of what a film photo would go though i.e the darkroom, but where do you draw the line since what you can do in the darkroom is limited and what can be done though digital manipulation has no limit, I'm talking about when you see a beautiful land and horizon shot, a good portion of the time they aren't even the same photo, they are two photos that have been merged together ( And I know this by having some of the best photographers in ireland tell me ). Granted credit goes to the person who can carry off such digital genious, but the question must be ask if this person a photographer or a photoshop mastermind, there has to be some differentiation between the two skills. And as far as photos having to go though photoshop before they are released I think that is a falsehood. My sisters ( younger ) are brilliant photographers using limited tools and not touching photoshop, yet they have produced some stunning shots, shots people twice there age and so called "professionals" have been astounded at ... searched for the link but couldn't find it, will get back to you on it.
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